Park Service Did Not Bill Utility Fees

The National Park Service failed to charge commercial concessionaires and private homeowners inside major parks for $73.8 million in utility costs from 1985 to 1989, according to an inspector general’s report of the U.S. Department of Interior.

Deputy Inspector General Joyce Fleischman said Friday the audit found that the park service was not charging private companies or homeowners inside parks for the costs of building facilities to deliver them water, electricity and other utilities or for the utility fees themselves. The report said parks failed to charge appropriately because they were not given sufficient guidelines or direction from park service management.

“In one case, the regional park people didn’t even know they were supposed to charge for utilities,” Fleischman said.

At Yosemite National Park, the report said, the park service failed to bill concessionaires and private homeowners for an $11.3-million electrical rehabilitation project, even though the concessionaires used 68% of the electricity distributed by the system. Yosemite also failed to recover another $1.5 million in utility costs, according to the report.

At Grand Canyon National Park, the park service did not charge for $20 million in water system costs from 1986 through 1989, even though the concessionaire used at least 80% of the system, the report said.

Fleischman said it is doubtful that the park service will try to recover the costs because in many cases parks did not keep adequate records and would not have legal authority to pursue the charges retroactively.

Instead, she said, the park service has pledged to charge the appropriate rates in the future and to recover capital costs from its concessionaires and homeowners.

Daniel Jensen, executive vice president of the Yosemite Park & Curry Co., Yosemite’s biggest commercial concessionaire, said he had not yet read the report. But, he said, “the system here has been they give us bills, and we pay them.”

Steve Goldstein, a spokesman for Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr., who has authority over the park service, said Lujan has not yet reviewed the report and could not comment on its findings.